Friday 4 October 2024

COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS 03.10.24


Four contests this week and three Labour defences - all lost.

Labour were defending two seats in Lancashire and lost both with huge swings to Reform in Blackpool and the Greens in Lancaster.  In Dundee, Labour narrowly lost to the SNP in a tight race, while the SNP held a seat in a second ward.

Marton, Blackpool Council

Ref: 462 (38.8%) +29.3%
Lab: 334 (28.0%) -23.0%
Con: 254 (21.3%) -18.2%
Ind: 84 (7.0%) New
LDm: 33 (2.8%) New
Grn: 25 (2.1%) New

Ref GAIN from Lab

Lochee, Dundee City Council

(first preference votes)

SNP: 1,203 (37.3%) -5.9%
Lab: 1,148 (35.6%) -0.2%
Con: 219 (6.8%) -1.6%
Alb: 178 (5.5%) +2.4%
Grn: 176 (5.5%) +1.3%
LDm: 156 (4.8%) +1.7%
WPB: 143 (4.4%) New

SNP GAIN from Lab (elected at stage 7)

Strathmartine, Dundee City Council

(first preference votes)

SNP: 1,188 (35.0%) -10.3%
LDm: 912 (26.9%) +8.2%
Lab: 911 (26.9%) +4.0%
Con: 143 (4.2%) -1.7%
Grn: 121 (3.6%) +0.2%
TUS: 116 (3.4%) +2.7%

SNP HOLD (elected at stage 6)

Scotforth East, Lancaster City Council

Grn: 623 (57.8%) +22.7%
Lab: 242 (22.4%) -18.2%
Con: 148 (13.7%) -4.8%
LDm: 66 (6.1%) +0.3%

Grn GAIN from Lab

Abbreviations

Ref = Reform UK
Lab = Labour
Con = Conservative
LDm = Liberal Democrat
Grn = Green
SNP = Scottish National Party
Alb = Alba
WPB = Workers Party of Britain
TUS = Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition
Ind = Independent

Tuesday 1 October 2024

TOON TUESDAY #25

Starmergeddon continues this week with a threesome...

Patrick Blower for The Daily Telegraph
Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph
Steven Camley for The Herald

Monday 30 September 2024

MEME MONDAY #6

The Labour conference wasn't a total disaster, but it couldn't distract anyone outside the hall from the disasters that continue to befall the party.  Starmer's sausage gaffe overshadowed his keynote speech and that is all it will be remembered for.  Duffield's resignation a few days later summed up another dreadful week for the PM, who declared that his lack of popularity is of no concern to him.  A PM who cares not for the popularity of his leadership and policies is destined to be very unpopular indeed...

Mon 23 Sept - 315 shares
Tue 24 Sept - 235 shares
Wed 25 Sept - 194 shares
Thurs 26 Sept - 172 shares
Fri 27 Sept - 82 shares
Fri 27 Sept - 119 shares
Sat 28 Sept - 182 shares
Sun 29 Sept - 153 shares

DUFFIELD'S RESIGNATION IN FULL


Rosie Duffield quit Labour over the weekend with a scathing rebuke for Keir Starmer and his government.  The MP had been unhappy for some time, stemming largely from the abuse and threats she has received due to her support for women's rights in the face of the trans agenda.  She abstained in the recent winter fuel vote and referred to that policy decision in her lengthy resignation letter, which can be read in full below.

"Dear Sir Keir,

Usually letters like this begin, "It is with a heavy heart..." Mine has been increasingly heavy and conflicted and has longed for a degree of relief. I can no longer stay a Labour MP under your management of the party, and this letter is my notice that I wish to resign the Labour Party whip with immediate effect.

Although many "last straws" have led to my decision, my reason for leaving now is the programme of policies you seem determined to stick to, however unpopular they are with the electorate and your own MPs.

You repeat often that you will make the "tough decisions" and that the country is "all in this together". But those decisions do not directly affect any one of us in Parliament. They are cruel and unnecessary, and affect hundreds of thousands of our poorest, most vulnerable constituents.

This is not what I was elected to do. It is not even wise politics, and it certainly is not "the politics of service".

I did not vote for you to lead our party for reasons I won't describe in detail here. But, as someone elevated immediately to a shadow cabinet position without following the usual path of honing your political skills on the backbenches, you had very little previous political footprint. It was therefore unclear what your political passions, drive or direction might be as the leader of the Labour Party, a large movement of people united by a desire for social justice and support for those most in need.

You also made the choice not to speak up once about the Labour Party's problems with antisemitism during your time in the shadow cabinet, leaving that to backbenchers, including new MPs such as me.

Since you took office as Leader of the Opposition you have used various heavy-handed management tactics but have never shown what most experienced backbenchers would recognise as true or inspiring leadership.

You have never regularly engaged with your own backbench MPs, many of whom have been in Parliament far longer than you, and some of whom served in the previous Labour government.

You have chosen neither to seek our individual political opinions, nor learn about our constituency experiences, nor our specific or collective areas of political knowledge. We

clearly have nothing you deem to be of value.

Your promotion of those with no proven political skills and no previous parliamentary experience but who happen to be related to those close to you, or even each other, is frankly embarrassing.

In particular, the recent treatment of Diane Abbott, now Mother of the House, was deeply shameful and led to comments from voters across the political spectrum. A woman of her political stature and place in history is deserving of respect and support, regardless of political differences.

As Prime Minister, your managerial and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long fourteen years to be mandated by the British public to return to power.

Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.

How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate's sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?! The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.

Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives' two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp - this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister. Forcing a vote to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for - why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment or remorse?

I now have no confidence in your commitment to deliver the so-called "change" you promised during the General Election campaign and the changes we have been striving for as a political party for over a decade.

My values are those of a democratic socialist Labour Party and I have been elected three times to act on those values on behalf of my constituents. Canterbury made history when its voters elected their first woman, and only non-Conservative, MP since the seat was created in the thirteenth century.

My constituents elected an independent-minded MP who vowed to put constituency before party, and to keep tackling the issues that most affect us here - Brexit fallout, funding for our universities, our desperately struggling East Kent NHS, dire housing situation, repeated sewage pollution and protecting our vital green spaces.

I am confident that I can continue to do so as an independent MP guided by my core Labour values.

Sadly, the Labour Party has never shown any interest in my wonderful constituency in the seven years that I have been in Parliament. But I am proud of my community and will continue to serve them to the best of my ability.

My constituents care deeply about social issues such as child poverty and helping those who cannot help themselves. I will continue to uphold those values as I pledged to do when I first stood before them for election in 2017.

As someone who joined a trade union in my first job, at seventeen, Labour has always been my natural political home. I was elected as a single mum, a former teaching assistant in receipt of tax credits. The Labour Party was formed to speak for those of us without a voice, and I stood for election partly because I saw decisions about the lives of those like me being made in Westminster by only the most privileged few. Right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them that anything has changed. I hope to be able to return to the party in the future, when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many before the greed of the few.

Yours sincerely,

Rosie Duffield MP

Duffield has been the MP for Canterbury since 2017, having increased her majority at each subsequent general election.  She will now sit as an independent.

Friday 27 September 2024

COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS 26.09.24


Rhyl Trellewelyn, Denbighshire County Council

Con: 188 (51.4%) +33.8%
Lab: 127 (34.7%) -5.5%
Plaid: 36 (8.7%) -3.9%
LDm: 19 (5.2%) New

Con GAIN from Lab

Stretton, East Staffordshire Borough Council

Con: 1,012 (70.8%) +25.3%
Lab: 304 (21.3%) -9.8%
Grn: 113 (7.9%) New

Con HOLD

Credenhill, Herefordshire Council

Ind: 201 (33.8%) New
Ind: 150 (25.3%) New
Con: 108 (18.2%) -20.5%
Ref: 89 (15.0%) New
LDm: 27 (4.5%) -12.7%
Lab: 19 (3.2%) New

Ind GAIN from Ind

Cromarty Firth, Highland Council (two seats)

(first preference votes)

LDm: 481 (20.3%) -7.6%
SNP: 403 (17.0%) -2.2%
Ind: 326 (13.7%) New
Ind: 323 (13.6%) New
Ind: 285 (12.0%) New
Ind: 162 (6.8%) New
Ind: 97 (4.1%) New
Grn: 89 (3.7%) +0.9%
Lab: 77 (3.2%) -0.9%
Con: 57 (2.4%) -4.3%
Ref (2): 52 & 23 (3.2%) New

LDm HOLD (elected at stage 11)
Ind GAIN from Ind (elected at stage 11)

Inverness Central, Highland Council

(first preference votes)

SNP: 551 (31.8%) -9.5%
Lab: 479 (27.7%) +3.6%
LDm: 286 (16.5%) +10.1%
Grn: 158 (9.1%) +1.7%
Con: 150 (8.7%) -4.1%
Ref:  (5.4%) New

Lab HOLD (elected at stage 6)

Barnfield, Luton Borough Council

LDm: 1,169 (63.5%) +11.4%
Lab: 321 (17.4%) 18.8%
Con: 209 (11.4%) -0.3%
Grn: 110 (6.0% New
Ind: 32 (1.7%) New

LDm HOLD

Wigmore, Luton Borough Council

LDm: 749 (54.6%) -28.2%
Ind: 209 (15.2%) New
Con: 151 (11.0%) New
Lab: 137 (10.0%) -7.1%
Grn: 125 (9.1%) New

LDm HOLD

Perth City North, Perth & Kinross Council

(first preference votes)

SNP: 917 (44.7%) +10.5%
Lab: 313 (15.3%) -0.1%
Con: 296 (14.4%) -5.1%
Ref: 209 (10.2%) New
Alb: 133 (6.5%) +4.3%
LDm: 95 (4.6%) +0.4%
Grn: 87 (4.2%) +0.8%

SNP GAIN from Lab (elected at stage 5)

Strathallan, Perth & Kinross Council

(first preference votes)

Con: 1,045 (32.1%) -14.6%
LDm: 978 (30.0%) +18.6%
SNP: 568 (17.4%) -17.5%
Lab: 366 (11.2%) New
Ref: 194 (6.0%) New
Grn: 107 (3.3%) -3.7%

LDm GAIN from Con (elected at stage 6)

Thurston, Mid Suffolk District Council (held on Tuesday)

Con: 579 (49.2%) +18.9%
Grn: 518 (44.0%) -10.6%
Lab: 79 (6.7%) -0.2%

Con GAIN from Grn

Godalming Binscombe and Charterhouse, Waverley Borough Council (held on Tuesday)

Con: 725 (40.6%) +19.7%
LDm: 714 (40.0%) +10.7%
Grn: 195 (10.9%) -16.3%
Lab: 151 (8.5%) -14.1%

Con GAIN from Lab

Abbreviations

Con = Conservative
Lab = Labour
Plaid = Plaid Cymru
LDm = Liberal Democrat
Grn = Green
Ref = Reform UK
SNP = Scottish National Party
Alb = Alba
Ind = Independents

Wednesday 25 September 2024

SAUSAGE MEMES

When Keir Starmer leaves Downing Street for the final time, wouldn't it be wonderful if he were to remembered purely for sausages?  Of course there is far worse to come from the PM than a mere Biden-esque gaffe, but we'll enjoy the moment with a selection of sausage-themed memes currently flooding the internet...

Tuesday 24 September 2024

SAUSAGES AND HECKLERS

Imagine all the effort that goes into preparing a 54 minute speech days before the speaker even stands up for 54 minutes to deliver it?  And yet despite all the intended talking points, quips and smug heckling comebacks, all that anyone will ever remember is the word 'sausages'?

Keir Starmer's disastrous premiership faced new mockery on Tuesday when he fumbled a single word during his keynote conference speech.  In referring to Gaza hostages he used the word 'sausages' instead of hostages.

Watch below.


As with Rachel Reeves' speech a day earlier, Starmer's speech did not go without protest.  Towards the end a young man shouted about Gaza, to which Starmer responded with a disparaging and hideously revisionist comeback: "This guy's obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference".  

Yes, because it's not as if you were a member of that 2019 shadow cabinet is it, Sir Squeaky?

Watch his Corbyn comeback below.


Starmer had been in the process of making a point about his sister being a care worker during the scamdemic.  This was yet another attempt to portray his supposed working class background, but earlier in the speech he referred to a childhood trip to Malta as a member of the Croydon Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in which he played the flute.  Typical working class lad, Sir Keir!

TOON TUESDAY #24

Freebies, freebies and more freebies.  That's the theme this week as the Labour freeloaders prepare to address their party conference...

Ben Jennings for The Guardian
Peter Brookes for The Times
Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph
Ben Jennings for The Guardian
Patrick Blower for The Daily Telegraph

Monday 23 September 2024

REEVES HECKLER DRAGGED OUT

With protesters both outside the conference hall and inside it, Rachel Reeves struggled to keep her composure during her keynote speech on Monday.  The Chancellor defended cuts to the winter fuel allowance while elderly protesters gathered outside to condemn her.  However, it was Palestine and 'climate change' that inspired the hecklers who interrupted Reeves as she was in full flow.

As she attacked the Tories for 'paying the price of their incompetence', a young man began shouting about Palestine.  Another just in front of him attempted to unfurl a banner, but was prevented from doing so after an audience member grabbed it.  The heckler was then tackled by security guards and dragged away, just after he added that 'climate breakdown is on our doorstep'.  Others in the audience shouted 'free Palestine' and 'stop oil'.

Watch below.


Reeves' defiant comeback to the hecklers was so disingenuous as to do anything but placate anger.

A party of working people?  Not a party of protest?  You've done nothing but protest for the past 14 years and are now doing the very things that you demanded the Tories should not.  Shameless.

MEME MONDAY #5

Two tier Britain was on full display when Huw Edwards walked out of court a free man on Monday.  Injustices, hypocrisy and corruption were a theme that ran through the week.  Labour's buzz word is 'change', but we're going to see more of the same moving forward as they continue to mock the British people and unravel our liberties...

Mon 16 Sept - 167 shares
Wed 18 Sept - 8 shares (yes, eight)
Wed 18 Sept - 99 shares
Thurs 19 Sept - 194 shares
Fri 20 Sept - 201 shares
Fri 20 Sept - 159 shares
Sat 21 Sept - 139 shares
Sun 22 Sept - 146 shares
Sun 22 Sept - 227 shares

Friday 20 September 2024

COUNCIL BY-ELECTIONS 19.09.24


There were eight seats up for grabs on Thursday, plus one contest held on Monday.  With the exception of Huntingdonshire, where Labour were newcomers, the Labour vote share was down in all the other seats.  They lost four seats in total, three to the Conservatives and one to the Lib Dems.  They held three others, despite huge swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall, Reform in Hartlepool and a combination of the Greens and Workers Party in Westminster.

The Tories were defending three seats, two of which were successfully held in Hartlepool, while they lost to an independent in Huntingdonshire.

Sidemoor, Bromsgrove District Council

LDem: 276 (52.6%) +24.9%
Con: 141 (26.9%) +3.1%
Lab: 87 (16.6%) -29.2%
Grn: 21 (4.0%) New

LDem GAIN from Lab

Falmouth Penwerris, Cornwall County Council

Lab: 337 (44.7%) -19.8%
LDem: 228 (30.2%) +25.5%
Grn: 189 (25.1%) +16.6%

Lab HOLD

Burn Valley, Hartlepool Borough Council

Lab: 475 (47.5%) -21.5%
Ref: 399 (39.9%) +23.9%
LDem: 89 (8.9%) New
Grn: 36 (3.6%) New

Lab HOLD

St Neots Eatons, Huntingdonshire District Council

Ind: 531 (32.7%) New
LDem: 426 (26.2%) +2.3%
Con: 420 (25.9%) -5.4%
Ind: 125 (7.7%) New
Lab: 77 (4.7%) New
Grn: 45 (2.8%) -8.7%

Ind GAIN from Con

Harrow Road, Westminster City Council

Lab: 512 (44.2%) -27.5%
Grn: 244 (21.1%) New
WPB: 166 (14.3%) New
Con: 162 (14.0%) -3.9%
LDem: 63 (5.4%) -4.9%
Ind: 11 (0.9%) New

Lab HOLD

West End, Westminster City Council

Con: 627 (48.8%) +8.5%
Lab: 489 (38.1%) -10.5%
Grn: 94 (7.3%) New
LDem: 74 (5.8%) -5.3%

Con GAIN from Lab

Fairfield, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council (two seats)

Con (2): 1,291 & 1,181 (54.2%) +12.0%
Lab (2): 528 & 496 (22.2%) -4.4%
Ref (2): 344 & 304 (14.5%) +6.4%
Ind: 110 (4.6%) New
Grn: 62 (2.6%) New
LDem (2): 45 & 43 (1.9%) New

Con HOLD (two seats)

Marine, Worthing Borough Council

Con: 865 (40.7%) +7.9%
Lab: 781 (36.8%) -16.0%
Ref: 228 (10.7%) New
Grn: 138 (6.5%) -2.7%
LDem: 113 (5.3%) +0.1%

Con GAIN from Lab

Bestwood St Albans, Gedling Borough Council (held on Monday)

Con: 358 (47.8%) +16.3%
Lab: 300 (40.1%) -12.3%
LDem: 91 (12.1%) +6.3%

Con GAIN from Lab

Abbreviations

LDem = Liberal Democrat
Con = Conservative
Lab = Labour
Grn = Green
Ref = Reform UK
WPB = Workers Party of Britain
Ind = Independents

Wednesday 18 September 2024

WHAT'S WRONG WITH WARSI?

Oddball Tory peer Baroness Warsi is a strange case indeed.  After being propelled to the House of Lords as a life peer in 2007 by then Tory leader Michael Howard, Warsi has rarely displayed anything in the way of conservative values.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  She behaves like a smug middle class leftist, while bizarrely maintaining the Tory whip.

Take this social media post from Sunday, in which she cheers on a far left activist who waved a placard depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts.  The racially charged message got Marieha Hussain into legal trouble, albeit she was cleared of a racially aggravated public order offence last week.

Warsi celebrated Hussain's acquittal with her own coconut reference.


While it could be said that Warsi was merely defending a fellow Muslim woman using a (derogatory) term that is common place in her culture, the problem is more over who she is defending.  Mariea Hussain, a teacher (quelle surprise?), had waved her hand drawn placard during a pro-Palestine march last November.  These marches were dominated by the hard left.  Why would a supposed Conservative peer get behind a far left Free Palestine marcher?

Is it racial solidarity?

While Warsi has frequently alluded to her Muslim background over the years, she is far from conservative when it comes to her faith, either.  She does not wear a head covering and was forced to abandon a visit to Luton in 2009 when she was confronted by Muslim thugs who pelted her with eggs.  During her single (failed) attempt to win a parliamentary seat in 2005, Warsi tried to appeal to the conservative values of Dewsbury's Muslim community by criticising Labour's repeal of Section 28, thus allowing homosexuality to be promoted in schools.  However, four years later (within the space of a parliamentary term had she been elected), Warsi was on board with same sex marriage and in 2013 apologised for her 'homophobic' campaign by declaring that the Tories were 'on the wrong side of history' in regards to gay rights.

In 2016 she claimed to have abandoned the Leave campaign because of its 'xenophobia' and 'hateful rhetoric', but Leave campaigners not only questioned whether she had ever joined the campaign, but fellow Tory peer Lord Hannan said she had outrightly rejected an endorsement.  Warsi went on to support a Remain vote.

Even when the Tory government lurched to the left during the Johnson/Sunak term, it was never woke enough for Warsi.  She was a frequent critic of home secretaries Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, who were both coincidentally of part-Hindu descent.  Warsi's hostility towards them was triggered by their posturing around controlling mass immigration, which she saw as a betrayal of their own ethnic background - hence her recent embrace of the 'coconut' insult.

She also lashed out recently at comments by Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch, which she described as 'appalling' and 'divisive'.  Badenoch had claimed that Reform UK had won seats on the back of 'sectarian Islamism'.

Warsi's X account is a sequence of race baiting posts, bemoaning racism and Islamophobia, as if Britain is Hell on earth for someone of colour.  As Britain's youngest peer, despite being the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, where is her sense of self awareness?  If the Tories are so horrible, why hold onto the party whip?  If Palestine concerns her more than Britain, why not join the Green Party or some other hideous far left outfit?

The truth is that Warsi has always been an opportunistic grifter who cannot contain her hostility towards Britain, probably stemming from some childhood trauma in which someone called her a 'Paki' one time or another.  In many ways she is no better than fellow race baiters Diane Abbott or Dave Lammy, but at least they are in the right party.

Tuesday 17 September 2024

TOON TUESDAY #23

This week's theme is pensioners and trade unions, the link is not as tenuous as it may seem...

Graeme Bandeira for The Yorkshire Post
Ben Jennings for The Guardian
Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph
Patrick Blower for The Daily Telegraph
Rob Murray for The Daily Telegraph

Monday 16 September 2024

MEME MONDAY #4

The big Labour rebellion in defence of pensioners' winter fuel allowance failed to materialise on Tuesday.  Only one Labour MP could muster a moral compass to defy his government.  The same day his government began the early release of thousands of prison inmates, one of whom re-offended on the very same day - and that is the one we know about.  The very next day the government announced it was sending millions more to Ukraine, while British pensioners may freeze to death this winter.

With talk of Ukraine it was no surprise that the week ended with Starmer and Lammy in Washington DC to discuss furthering the conflict.  The following day there was another assassination attempt on the man who says he wants to stop the war.  "Go figure" as they say over there...

Tues 10 Sept - 132 Facebook shares
Wed 11 Sept - 251 shares
Wed 11 Sept - 469 shares
Thurs 12 Sept - 318 shares
Thurs 12 Sept - 135 shares
Fri 13 Sept - 112 shares
Sat 14 Sept - 173 shares
Sun 15 Sept - 151 shares
Sun 15 Sept - 42 shares
Sun 15 Sept - 81 shares
Sun 15 Sept - 9 shares
Sun 15 Sept - exclusive to X and GETTR